UG3's Space Ship

Here's the ship that the UG3 team get around in. It's about 2 1/2 long and about 2 feet tall. Here are construction pics.

This is a rough beginning sketch.

 

Main structure made from Styrofoam and upholstery foam.

 

 Here it is with the cloth covering.

Side engines

Almost there.

Finished piece for now. There are less "add-ons" than I originally planned, but I might add more before the time to shoot. I'm going to shoot it in stop-motion in front of a green screen then composite it with other elements. I'll post some of that when we get to shooting it.

Madam Thrunch - Stop Mo Animation Model Production Pics

Madam Thrunch is a minor character so instead of creating a hand puppet for her parts I'm going to put her in as a Stop-Motion animation. Here are some production pics of her creation from "blueprint" to completion. Go here for her original concept sketches.

These first three are rough designs and the beginning armatures laying out next to them for comparison. The materials used are, armature wire, plumbers epoxy, tooling foil and balsa wood.

Here are armature shots of the head. Regular wood shapes held together with armature wire and epoxy. Then covered with more epoxy to shape out the head. The tube in the center is where the different mouth shapes will go.

Hands and feet are being made and attached to the body.  The fingers are twisted floral wire and the knuckles are small plastic beads. All held together with epoxy and hot glue.

Now I'm covering all the exposed parts with latex so I can manipulate them for the animation.

Now I'm making her set. Madam Thrunch is the CEO of Gandermoon Studios. She's pretty terrifying so she's got a very strong Evil Emperor vibe going on.

 

The back of her throne is made of a television antenna, piece of an old alarm clock and half of a plastic ball painted blue. The two pedestals are made from left over pieces from ceiling fan installation kits. They're cold and shiny to help with the "Death Star" feel.

 

Here's the finished set. The pylons are made from plastic tubes painted with the same blue paint from the throne. The cool toppers are caps from syringes we got from the pharmacy. The black tubing on the edge is normally used to hide telephone cords.

Now here's the finished set with Madam Thrunch sitting in it. I made her robe from a T-Shirt. Now she's got rings and other jewelry made from cheap rhinestones and wire and foil. Her eyes are shrouded to mimic the evil emperor again.

This last shot is to show scale. The whole set is about 14 inches tall and 16 inches wide.

 

Award Winning Bugs

Our last film was a half hour educational comedy called BugWorld. Like UG3 it was a blend of 2D, Stop-Motion, and 3D animation, along with traditional puppetry; and it covered the realm of insects, arachnids and other creepy crawlies. BugWorld made its premier at the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival and won a Best Film Award from Kids First – the largest film organization in the world for children and teens.  Below are a couple of segments from the film.

The Bridge

Using After Effects I have taken the artwork Al created in Flash for the bridge of the ship and constructed a 3D environment. Using this 3D version of the bridge we will be able to ad life to the animations. This gives us the opportunity to do camera moves, special lighting, and some cinematic flare using depth of field. The screens will be able to have video in them and the doors will actually open and close. I am working with Zaxwerks Invigorator Pro to make the banister in the back into an actual 3D object instead of using the flat 2D pieces in there now. There is still more to do and hopefully soon we can test with some actual characters in the room but at this point I think it is looking good. Lee Waller.

Animatic for SSSNAPPE Intro

Here's an animatic for the SSSNAPPE introduction. SSSNAPPEs will be shorts hosted by the UG3 characters. It will give us a chance to test out voices, timing and how the chemistry between characters are working. The main host, Thunderstone, will be stop-motion animation while the others will be done in Flash, although the round monitors that they appear in will be stop motion also.

Here's a mock-up of the chair that Thunderstone is sitting in. The green domes are the monitors that rise up around him and hold the images of the other hosts.

Initial observations include: we need to up the acting with some of the voices, possibly add a music bed and tighten the timing.

We should have another rough animatic for the Half-Naked Snowboarders SSSNAPPE up soon.

The Kneelsun Kids

Here are preliminary/discovery sketches of two stop-motion characters. They are two alien kids who sit in front of the television set and make funny comments between segments of the show. They inadvertently help to introduce a new segment or tie up a finished one. 

The older sibling is Arbed. I've got the basic body structure but still not sure about the hair.

Next is her little brother Eel.

 

 Maybe you can see there is some Chuck Jones influence. In fact I want these two to be very much like the two boys in the Looney Tunes short Zip, Zip Hooray... just an alien stop-mo version of them.

  

Here's some idea/self-direction on how to make the eye pods so they can be more animatable with less construction worries.